Never Play Cards With A Telepath
by Black Lighted Clouds
Summary: The boys are bored, so Matt thinks of something to do. Too bad the heat brings out the worse in him and Scott. I apologise if it's not as good as my othr ones and it's not as long, either.


**A/N: Occurred to me when I was writing the first chapter of the next story.**

Perudo was a fairly fun game, but, as anyone who has done this before can attest, doing something over and over and over again becomes mind-numbingly dull. After playing it for the last three days non-stop while Professor Chambers and Richard did who knows what in her study, the boys wanted something else to do. Scott suggested they practise riding the llamas again, but that was probably to see the look on Pedro's face. Jamie wanted to go outside and play football, but that had been forbidden after his faulty aim had caused the professor no end of troubles.

"It's too hot outside, anyway," explained Scott.

Pedro just lay on the ground in silence. After about twenty minutes of the quiet, Matt got an idea that would hopefully amuse them for a bit longer than usual. Getting up he went to the study. The other waited. When he came back, he was holding a deck of cards. "Let's play," he said.

Jamie sat up, pulling his unenthusiastic twin with him, eager to have something to do. "What are we playing?"

Matt considered. "I don't know, but it should be a little bit more interesting than Perudo."

"After the last couple of days, anything would be." Scott muttered.

Instead of taking the usual course of action the people inhabiting the hacienda favoured, ignoring the broody older twin when he did stuff like that, Matt turned to him and asked, "What do you want to play, Scott?"

The other boy thought for a second before saying, "Go Fish."

Noticing the look on Matt's face, he demanded, "What?"

The blue-eyed male shrugged, "Nothing, I just had you pictured as more of a Snap type."

For once, Scott chose to ignore the jibe in silence. It was rather hot, after all. He didn't feel like doing anything. Relieved, the other two came closer, so the teenagers were sitting in a circle, Matt and Scott opposite each other, with Jamie to Scott's left and Pedro to Matt's left. Matt dealt the cards and gestured for Scott to go first, "Got any two's?"

"Here," Jamie answered, handing them to his brother as Matt shook his head. Marginally turning to Matt, he inquired, "Eights?" already aware that his brother had none.

Matt shook his head, "Go fish." Jamie picked a card off of the pile in the centre. It continued, "Kings?" The brothers said nothing and gave nothing. "Pedro?"

Silence.

Matt looked up. "Pedro?"

The twins also rested their gaze on the Peruvian boy. He looked from Scott, to Jamie, to Matt and back again, completely bewildered.

"What's wrong?" Jamie asked in concern.

It was Scott, however, who answered him. "He doesn't know how to play."

"Ah," said the newly enlightened Matt. Turning his body to face his friend fully, he explained, "Pedro, it's a game where you try to get four of each number," he held up a six he had to explain his point, "and you get the cards from the other players," he gestured at Scott and Jamie "by asking them for the card, if they've got it, they have to hand it over, otherwise they say go fish and you take a card from the pile." He finished his summary of the game by nodding at the cards in the centre.

Pedro was lost. Jamie suggested, "Maybe if you watch us play and see how we do it; you'll catch on soon enough."

"Good idea, Jamie." Matt agreed, replacing all of Pedro's cards on the centre pile and asking him to sit and watch carefully.

Aware that the twins did not have his king, he took a card from the pile, making it Scott's turn again. He smirked. "Sixes?" Matt shot him a dirty look and handed it over as Jamie sighed. Here we go again, he thought.

XXXXX

After an hour, a little observation and a few errors, Pedro was now in his previous position in the circle, playing with the other three, not only Go Fish, but Snap and Jin too. He had had some problems with the concept of Black Jack but everybody did, at some point and they were now onto Poker. Matt had been getting steadily more and more irritated. There was a pattern developing; Pedro and Matt both won about twenty percent of the time Jamie won twenty-five percent of the time and the other thirty-five percent of the time went to Scott. Matt was getting suspicious.

When Scott then proceeded to win five consecutive games of Jin, one of Black Jack, one of Poker, three of Snap and five of Go Fish, Matt snapped. Not a card.

"That's it!" he shouted as Scott collected his cards. The others looked at him in surprise. "What's wrong, Matt?" Jamie asked.

Matt rounded on him furiously. "What's wrong is your cheating brother!!" he yelled, pointing an accusatory finger at the perpetrator.

Scott frowned. "What rubbish are you spouting out?" His expression cleared all of a sudden and he drawled in a bored voice, "Honestly, Matt, I know you don't trust me, but it extends to even a _card game_? How pathetic; I expected better from you."

Matt went red as he spluttered. Heedlessly, the accused continued, "How exactly could I have cheated, anyway?"

Having finally found something concrete to place his case on, Matt crowed triumphantly, "Telepathy."

Scott glowered murderously. Now it was Matt's turn to push it, "Now, now Scott, I expected better of you," the English boy flushed with pleasure when he saw Scott retch at having his own words twisted around to be used against him. "I mean, if you're going to make it look like I'm being ridiculous, don't ask me such a silly question. Honestly!"

Maybe it was a childish thing to do, Scott reflected later, but it was worth it. Turning at lightning speed, he dug his hand into a pot with a plant and it's compost in there and chucked it into Matt's face as he turned back. Pedro and Jamie waited quietly while Scott continued to glare. Matt raised his eyebrow at the Native American.

"Well," he said clearly, "since you've used your powers, I think it's only fair that I use mine." The glass of Pisco Sour nearest to Scott suddenly jumped up and flung its contents into his face, leaving him dripping wet as he faced his dirt covered opponent. "If you're going to throw stuff, remember that two can play at that game."

As Jamie had noticed when Scott was controlling the secret service man to kill Senator Trelawney, his powers had indeed grown. He could now not just control people telepathically, but also send his thoughts into someone else's head to communicate with them. He was trying to teach Jamie how to do it, though he hadn't quite mastered it. Scott put the ability to good use now, smiling hollowly at Matt as he did it. Silence.

Matt jumped on Scott, laying over him on all fours as Scott, recovering from the shock of the other boy's sudden assault, tried to shove him off so he could hit him. Jamie and Pedro looked at each other. Then got up and walked away.

XXXXX

As Richard and the Professor walked out of her study, they knew at once something had happened for a number of reasons. For one thing, the teenagers were quietly watching a DVD without bickering. For another, Matt and Scott were both wearing different clothes than when the adults had last seen them and they both looked like they had been in the shower.

These subtle hints, they decided to ignore. Richard however, couldn't stop himself from pointing out the obvious one.

"Matt, Scott, why do you both have massive bruises?!"

They looked at each other for a moment. Pedro and Jamie remained silent, eyes glued to the TV. Then Matt broke the silence, "We were playing snap."

"On your faces?!"

Matt turned back to the TV. Scott reached over him to pick up a plate that was sitting on Pedro's lap. He held it out to the adults. "I made cookies."

**A/N: Thought I would end it there; I'm not sure what else I could do with it. And yes, I am aware it's not as good as my other ones, you needn't tell me. But hey, this is the second story I've published in *looks at clock* three/four hours, cut me some slack.**


End file.
